222 
SCOLOPACIDiE. 
some years previously, spent a considerable part of a day, endea- 
vouring, tbougli unsuccessfully, to obtain a shot at one of these 
plovers, which he saw in a field near Youghal. In 1837, 1 was told 
by Mr. T. W. Warren of a specimen (seen by him when recent) 
having been killed some time before at Clontarf, Dublin Bay. One 
in the possession of Mr. E. J. Montgomery was shot in the month 
of January 1836 (?), when flying over the river Eobe, within six 
miles of Lough Mask, county Mayo. Mr. Eichard Chute, writing 
from Blennerville in February 1816, remarked, that Mr. Eosberry, 
who resides in that village, saw a few of these birds, in company 
with lapwings, about twenty years previous to that time, near 
Adare, county of Limerick. 
This species is only known to visit England and Scotland at 
irregular intervals. It does not migrate to the north of Europe, 
and is hardly known in the western parts of that continent which 
are southward of the British Isles. 
THE BLACK-TAILED GODWIT. 
Limosa melanura, Leisler. 
Seolopax limosa, Linn. 
Frequents the coast in autumn and winter — more es- 
pecially at the former season — in very limited 
numbers. 
Almost every autumn for many years past, a very few of these 
birds have been obtained in Belfast Bay ; and there is little doubt 
of the species being a regular autumnal visitant to Ireland.* 
A few still breed in the marshes of England ; but the numbers 
that do so are becoming annually less. I have not seen any 
notice of their having bred in Scotland ; and they are not known 
* A bird-preserver in Belfast, questioned on this subject in 1838, stated, that 
he was pretty sure of having received one or two black-tailed godwits to be set up 
every autumn for the preceding fifteen years, or since he had commenced the busi- 
ness of taxidermist. 
